these passages so plainly proving their so superlative esteem of the Holy Scriptures do infer their most exact diligence and watchfulness for their conservation and safety And this is sufficient for my purpose in this Section But withal too I have gain'd an Argument for my main design viz. The Testimony of the Fathers forasmuch as between Holy Scriptures being the safest Conveyance of Divine Truths throughout all Ages and Scriptures being the sole Rule of Faith there is so necessary a Connexion And because the Romanists likewise allege the Fathers to give Countenance to Oral Tradition therefore the Testimony of the Fathers in our case shall be farther considered of And 1. I will appeal to any ingenious Reader of them whether the passages which the Romanists cite out of the Fathers on the behalf of Tradition and seemingly the most diminutive of Scripture do in any measure come near to such a course Character of it as that it is a Black Gospel an Ink Theology (a) Sure Footing p. 194. dead Characters Waxen-natur'd and pliable to the Daedalean Fancies of the ingenious Moulders of new Opinions If Mens thoughts may be judg'd of by their words sure the Fathers and Romanists Sentiments of the Scriptures were very divers 2ly Seeing there is a seeming contradiction of the Fathers to themselves because they are urg'd by both the disagreeing Parties it will be fitting to enquire whether there may not be a reconciliation of them to each other and of some of them to themselves For this end I suppose a good means would be 1. Seeing the Fathers sometimes speak of Scripture without mention of Tradion at other times speak of Tradition not mentioning Scripture to examine how they deliver their Sense when they express themselves of Scripture and Tradition jointly and comparatively of one with the other 2ly To see whether their appearingly most favourable expressions of Tradition may not be very well construed in a subordination of Tradition to Scripture very consistently with Scriptures Precedence to it 1. Of the Fathers speaking of Scripture and Tradition conjointly I will begin with St. Cyprian in his Epistle to Pompey Being prest with Tradition he answers Whence is this Tradition Descends it from our Lord's and his Gospel's Authority or comes it from the Commands of the Apostles and their Epistles God declares that those things should be done which are written saying to Joshua The Book of the Law shall not depart from thy Mouâ—h but thou shalt meditate in it day and night that thou mayest observe to do all things written in it Likewise our Lord sending his Apostles Commands all Nations to be Baptized and to be taught that they observe all things whatsoever he had Commanded What obstinacy what presumption is it to prefer humane Tradition to the Divine Dispose or Command and not to consider that God is angry and in wrath when humane Tradition disregards and dissolves Divine Commands As God warns and speaks by the Prophet Isaiah c. And toward the end of the Epistle And this it behoves God's Priests to do at this time keeping the Divine Commands that if Truth have declin'd and fail'd in any respect we go back to the source of the Evangelical and Apostolical Tradition and let the manner of our Actings take their rise thence whence their Order and Origin rose The preference of Scripture to Tradition by this antient Father is so plain and undeniable that it is reply'd St. Cyprian's Testimony was writ by him to defend an Error and therefore no wonder if as Bellarmine says more errantium ratiocinetur he discours'd after the rate of those that err that is assumes false grounds to build his Error on Letter of Thanks p. 124. But this is a mean Evasion For tho' Cyprian was indeed in an Error and did mistake in his discourse yet it can't be affirm'd with probability or Charity to such a Saint and Martyr that to gratifie a private Opinion he would affront so Sacred and Catholick a Principle as the Rule of Christian Faith and degrade Tradition from being such if he had indeed believed it to be so Yet if this should be granted to our Adversaries the consequence would be their inconvenience For why might not more do the same which St. Cyprian did and if some Fathers might desert Tradition and flye to Scripture meerly to serve a Turn for defence of an Opinion which they could not maintain otherwise why may it not be as well said that other Fathers might baulk Scripture and advance Tradition and for the same end viz. to support some Doctrine or Doctrines which else must have fallen And upon this it would follow beside the imputation of inconstancy and shifting to the Fathers that we must be at much uncertainty what truly was the Judgment of the Fathers concerning the Rule of Faith and that therefore the quotations out of them must in a great part be insignificant for this purpose St. Basil in his Tract call'd Questions compendiously unfolded or answered says It is necessary and consonant to Reason that every Man learn that which is needful out of the Holy Scripture both for the fulness of godliness and lest they accustom themselves to humane Traditions 'T is acknowledged by (a) De amissi gratiae L. 1. C. 13. Bellarmine that this Author admits not Traditions unwritten but then he says it is not certainly manifest whether these Questions were the great Basil's or rather Eustathius's of Sebastia Yet the same (b) De Paenit L. 3. C. 8. Bellarmine confidently quotes them as St. Basils for Auricular Confession So that it may seem that the Questions were before scrupled at only because they spoke in behalf of Scripture against Tradition and against venial sins which is manifest Partiality But I shall bring a Testimony of St. Basil which Bellarmine himself would own to be St. Basils who in his Book of the true Faith thus Discourses If God be faithful in all his sayings his Words and Works they remaining for ever and being done in Truth and Equity it must be an evident signe of Infidelity and Pride if any one shall reject what is written and introduce what is not written This is a manifest Prelation of what is written i. e. Holy Scriptures to what is unwritten i. e. Tradition which Bellarm. calls the unwritten word of God in the Title to his 4th Book De verbo Dei When St. (a) Quid inquam Omousion nisi Ego Pater unum sumus Sed nunc nec ego Nicaenam synodum tibi nec tu Arimineusem mihi debes tâ—nquam praejudicaturus cbiitere Scripturarum Authoritatibus res cum re causa cum causâ ratio cum ratione concertet Contra Maxt Lib. 3. Cap. 14. August was willing to wave the Council of Nice to Maximinus and to retire to a Decision of the Catholick Cause by Scripture certainly that great Person judg'd Scripture without Tradion to be sufficient to prove an Article of Faith or
must have been satisfied if such the pleasure of God had been with an Oral Tradition Hence (a) Quid antem si neque Apostolâ— quidem Scripturas reliquissent nobis nonne oportebat c. Adversus haer L. 3. C. 4. Irenaeus might say what if the Apostles had not indeed left the Scriptures to us would it not have behoov'd us to follow the Order of Tradition which they had delivered to them to whom they committed the Churches to which Ordination do assent many Nations of Barbarians which believe in Christ having Salvation written in their hearts without Characters or Ink by the Spirit and diligently keeping antient Tradition This I say Irenaeus might with reason write especially against those (b) Evenititaque neque Scripturis jam neque traditioni consentire eos Idem L. 3. C. 2. who consented neither to Scriptures nor Tradition i. e. such as descended from the Apostles But when as the whole Scriptures were long since written and plentifully Communicated to the Christian world the Case is quite alter'd Besides the nearer things are to their Origin they are the more genuine and sincere but at the farther remove they are from it the more they are in danger of changes and decays Tradition must be conceiv'd to have been much more pure at the distance of an hundred or an hundred and fifty or two or three hundred years from the Apostles and therefore then might be more rationally argued from in some cases than after 7 8 or 9 hundred years in which revolution of so many more Ages and after intercurrencies of many more accidents Tradition may be more suspected of that consumptiveness and of those changes which Time brings upon all things and therefore an Argument from it would be much more infirm Farther yet besides Oral the Fathers of the more Primitive Times might have written Traditions such Records to prove that such a Doctrine or Doctrines were profess'd by Apostolical Men by Holy Martyrs and Confessors successively to that present Age as were then extant but are perish'd since (a) Age jam qui voles curiositatem melius exercere in negotlo Salutis tuae percurre Ecclesias Apostolicas apud quas ipsae adhuc cathedrae Apostolorum suis locis praesidentur apud quas ipsae Authenticae eorum literae recitantur sonantes vocem repraesentantes faciem uniuscujusque Tertul. de Praescrip Tertullian speaks of the very Authentick Letters of the Apostles which were even then preserved in the Churches So that the Fathers might with the more safety trust and allege Tradition's suffrage than we can who live so incomparably farther off from the Apostles Days than they did it being very likely that in such a far longer space of time the more contingencies have interpos'd to disturb the clearness of Commerce between them and us 4ly Proofs may be brought in a divers manner and for different uses St. Paul quoted Heathenish Poets as well as the Law and the Prophets 'T is usual where the Subject is properly manageable upon the stock of Reason yet to argue likewise from Testimony to call in the concurring Judgment of others In Religion Protestants do not believe the Fathers to be infallible and yet it has been usual with them to cite them both in Homiletique Discourses and in Polemique Writings Testimony tho' it be not apodictical yet it is plausible Example in point of Opinion as well as of Practice is much gaining upon many is not alone commonly better understood but more prevalent too than Reason with many Capacities And when 't is the Testimony of many as Tradition is it causes those of an opposite Opinion to appear the more singular in their Persuasion and singularity is not of the best Credit So then the Fathers might on some occasions use Tradition's Authority the general consent of Christians in some Truth for one or more Ages yet not demonstratively but topically somewhat the more to repress or to disparage in other's Opinion the importunity of a petulant Adversary to shame a contumacious Heretick not as is said Sure Footing p. 140 to declare that the rejecting Tradition and adhering to Scripture made him an Heretick or they might urge it to the more tractable as a probable motive to assent tho' not as a Rule of Faith yet as such a persuasive as might be an occasion of Belief and the better dispose the Soul toward Faith and Assurance Yet still supposing Holy Scriptures to be the proper and ultimate basis of Christian Faith and that such Traditions were consonant to them and not over-ruling of them I believe that these considerations may be useful for the construction of the Fathers in such passages wherein they make the most honourable mention of Tradition and to shew that notwithstanding such a mention of Tradition yet they might yield to Scripture the Supremacy in the regulation of Christian Faith especially whenas they speak so reverently of Scripture in other places of their Works nay and give them the Precedence when they compare the one with the other And thus if after a digression yet I think not an impertinent one I have proved the Father's unquestionable Care and Diligence in preservation of the Holy Scriptures by their Religious and unparallell'd esteem and veneration for them SECT IV. 3ly The Holy Scriptures are secur'd by God's especial Protection of them Reason suggests that as there is a God a Supreme and first Cause who made the world and also provides for the welfare of his great Workmanship so that the Divine Providence does mainly watch over those Creatures on which God has imprinted the fairest Characters of his Power Wisdom and Goodness Such a Creature is Man And this Divine Providence is the Catholick Sanctuary of Mankind After all Mens own projectings and labours here is their last and surest repose They can't with a rational comfort Trade Travel Eat Sleep but with a sober hope of the Divine help and benediction For if Divine Providence smile not all Mens wisest Counsels and stoutest Endeavours will be successless They may go forth and never return home their Table may be a Snare and their Sleep Death more than in a Metaphor Next Religion tells us that God has designed and prepar'd for Man an everlasting Blessedness and determin'd of the due Qualifications of Man for that Blessedness and it is agreed that in the Sacred Scriptures God has revealed Himself concerning both These Scriptures are the lively Image of God the faire Copy of his Will a bright Express of his Truth and Holiness a Perspective into his Mind and into many of his secret Counsels authentick Records of the many and glorious manifestations of the Divine Wisdom Power Goodness Mercy and Justice in making governing all things and in the Salvation of Sinners From the dictates of Reason then and much more of Religion it is consequent that God has an especial Care that the Scriptures be safe on which he has impressed so much of himself which were
design'd and successful Adulteration of them by Hereticks is not well conceivable For so many were the Scriptures in their Originals so very numerous were their (a) Qui Script in Graecam linguam verterunt numerari possunt Latini autem Interpretes nullo modo c. August De Doctrinâ Christianâ L. 2. C. 11.5 Translations diffus'd throughout the World where there were Christians that if Hereticks did raze out some passages or foist in others in any way corrupt the Text they could do so but in some Copies and in the Places where they came But that they should succeed in a corruption of all the Books or of the greater part of them is not imaginable Especially whenas the Scriptures were so continually and diligently read by all Christians So that such Impostures must needs have been soon discover'd and warning been giuen to Christians to beware of the Cozenage For this purpose we have the Suffrages of Card. Bellarmine and of Sixtus Senensis Although says the (a) Eisi multa depravare conati sunt haeretici tamen nunquam defuerunt Catholici qui eorum corruptelas deteâ—erint non permiserint Libros sacrâ—s corrumpi c. De verbo Dei Lib. 2. Cap. 75. Et verò Cardinal the Hereticks have endeavoured to deprave many things he means in the Scriptures yet there were never wanting Catholicks who detected those Adulterations and permitted not the Sacred Books to be corrupted (b) Quoniam ut Augst inquâ—t licèt omnes Fatres in hoc conspirâssent ut seipsos atque alios Scripturarum veritate privarent qâ—od imaginari non potest non tamen potuissent omnes undique codices falsare c. Biblioth Sanct. p. 727. And Sixtus Senensis quoting St. August tells us that though all Fathers had conspir'd to deprive themselves and others of the Truth of the Scriptures which none can imagine yet they could not have corrupted all the Books every where How hard it was to corrupt the Holy Scripture without detection and an Alarm to the Christian world perhaps some guess may be made by the unsuccessfulness of such an Attempt on Books much inferior to them For when the Papists had set a design on foot and proceeded some way in it of Purging the Writings of the antient Fathers and of some moderate Authors the Dishonesty soon appeared and was complain'd of SECT III. It can't be thought that through Casualty or supine negligence the Scriptures should expire should be suffered to be a Prey to Moths Mould and Worms to linger away in a Consumption or to be embezeled in Vulgar and Sordid uses such as (a) Ne thuris piperisve sis cucullus Lib. 3. Epig. 2. Martial warns his Book against For that which doth most envigor Mens Care and Industry for the preservation of a thing is their high value especially Religious Veneration for it and such Jews and Christians have had for the Scriptures because known by them to be Sacred to be the Divine Oracles and the Contents of them to be of Eternal Consequence to them The Jews to whom pertaineth the giving of the Law were most accurately diligent in keeping the Revelations given to them most entire (b) De verbo Dei L. 2. C. 2. Hi Sigitur omissis Card. Bellarmine quotes Philo affirming That for above 2000 years even to his Time not one word had been chang'd in the Law and that any Jew would dye an hundred times rather than consent to any such change He adds out of Johannes Isaac that the latter Jews adore the Law ut Numen as a Deity and if it chanc'd to fall on the ground bid a Fast for expiation of the mischance This Bellarm. relates and this is one of his five Arguments why it is not to be conceiv'd that ever the Jews should have corrupted the Old Testament out of Malice to the Christians as the mistake of some is The admirable and stupendious Care and Industry as Heinsius calls it of the Masorites is known who numbred every Verse Word and Letter In Proleg ad exercit in novum Testam And this they intended as Sepimentum Legis a Mound or Fence of the Law against Alterations The Jews had not a greater and more Sacred Estimation of the Law than the Christians had for both Law and Gospel particularly the Fathers 1. Their great laboriousness in the Study and Explication of the Sacred Writings in their many Comments and Homilies is an indication of their incomparable Honour for them In which work they did so abound that suppose the Bibles should be lost which is suppos'd only not granted far the greater part rather the whole might be recovered out of their Comments Homilies and occasional Citations in their other Writings As this is an Argument of their singular Honour for the Scriptures so it is a providential relief and supernumerary way of retrieve of them supposing the loss of them 2ly The Fathers high estimation and reverence for the Scriptures are legible in Expressions concerning them and Deferences to them Irenaeus thus begins his third Book We have not known the disposition of our Salvation by others than those by whom the Gospel came unto us which indeed they then preach'd but afterwards by the Will of God delivered it to us in the Scriptures as the future Foundation and Pillar of our Faith Afterwards in the end of the 66th Chap. of his 4th Book He bids all Hereticks and principally the Marcionitâ—â— and those who were like them saying That the Prophecies came from another God read diligently the Gospel which was delivered by the Apostles to us and read diligently the Prophets and you will find every Action every Doctrine and every Suffering of our Lord delivered in them Tertullian against Hermogenes C. 23. I adore the fulness of the Scripture Let Hermogenes and his shew that it is written If it be not written let him dread the Woe which pertains to them who add or detract Athanasius in his Oration against the Gentiles says That the Scriptures are enough for manifestation of the Truth St. Jerom. on Ps 98. Every thing that we assert we must shew from the Holy Scripture All things which concern Faith and Manners are found in the plain places of Scripture according to St. Augustine in the 9th Chap. of his 2d Book of Christian Doctrine These are some amongst others of the Father's reverential acknowledgments their full and clear depositions for Holy Scriptures sufficiency for and Prerogative of being the sole Rule of Faith and in this Point they speak like as very Protestants as those who form'd the (a) The words of the Article are these Holy Scripture contains all things necessary to Salvation so that whatsoever is not read therein nor may be prov'd therby is not to be requir'd of any Man that it should be believ'd as an Article of Faith or be thought requisite or necessary to Salvation Evangel nigrum Atram Theol. 6th Article of the Church of England And
are the Holy Scriptures and Oracles of God against what is affirm'd and can be prov'd by us to be uncertain or false in Tradition As in a like case Scholars argue from what is true and clear in Reason against what is false or dubious tho' it have Reason pretended for it Thus discoursing from Reason against Reason i. e. from what is really such against what is such but in name and appearance The sum and result of the Premises is this That as we do not take Tradition's Word for all the Doctrines or Practices and Senses of Scripture it would impose on us though we accept of Tradition's Evidence concerning the Scriptures as was in the beginning of this Chapter acknowledg'd So nor are we oblig'd to the former by acknowledgment of the latter Having stated what may be allow'd and what is denyed to Oral Tradition Next it shall be examin'd what Reason and Experience suggest against its sureness and safety of Conveyance and likewise after that what either can pretend on it's behalf CHAP. III. Reasons against the Certainty and Safety of Conveyance of Divine Truths by Oral Tradition SECT I. IT is asserted That the Body of the Faithful from Age to Age are the Traditioners of Divine Truths Sure Footing p. 60.100 101. that in reality Tradition rightly understood is the same thing materially with the living Voice and Practice of the whole Church essential consisting of Pastors and Laiety Now before Reason can acquiesce in a Tradition by Pastors and Laiety it must according to what has been premis'd be well satisfied in the fitness of the Testifiers The Qualifications of Persons for a due Testification especially in so weighty a matter as Religion are 1. Good knowingness of Fathers and Ancestors in Religion as also due care and diligence of Fathers in teaching their Children together with good Apprehensions Memory and Tractableness in the Children and Posterity 2ly Such a measure of Integrity through all descents as may secure the successive Testifiers against all temptations unto swerving from what they received from Fathers Let these Qualifications be farther considered of 1. The first Requisites are good Knowingness of Fathers together with Care and Diligence as also Apprehension Memory and Tractableness in Children let us examine how far these may be found in the Laiety I believe that the value and zeal for Religion in the first and golden Age of the Church made Fathers diligent to teach and Youth to learn But I doubt that this Temper as is incident to Religious Fervors might cool afterwards and that when Emperors became Christians Ease and Prosperity might beget a restiveness and neglect both in Ancestors and Posterity How well Fathers of Families did perform their part and how docile Children have been throughout the many hundred years before us is out of our Ken. But if we may guess at times past as there is often a likeness in some measure of the ways of Men in one Age to those in another by the times present and nearer to us it is to be wished I fear rather than it will be found that all or most Fathers and Governors of Families were such as Abraham Gen. 18.19 Josh 24.15 and Joshua Religion is too little minded in too many Families The use of a Catechisme is too rare and That when us'd is often little understood and less remembred Commonly Parents teach their Children the Lords Prayer Creed and Ten Commandments and that is well But these Rudiments are too slender a stock for Children to set up with as qualified Conveyers of the Body of the Christian Faith And if even these should pass down long by word of Mouth and not be Written they would be in danger of Maims or Corruptions But it may be thought Dr. James in his Manuduction to Divinity p. 108. Ex. Jo. Avent Conc. Bas M. S. that Spiritual Fathers instruct Young and Old both and capacitate them better for being Oral Traditioners Yet when the Priests were Fools Stocks and slothful Beasts when they had neither Scientiam nor Conscientiam neither Knowledge nor Conscience as it was complain'd in Old time it is not likely that then the Clergy were very careful to instruct the Laiety or that the Laiety should learn much from such a Clergy When of far later years some in Ireland (a) The reverend Arch-Bishop Usher in a Sermon Preached before the King June 20. 1624. on Eph. 4.13 who would be accounted Members of the Roman Church being demanded what they thought of the Doctrine of Transubstantiation not only rejected it with indignation but wondred also that it should be imagin'd any of their side should be so foolish as to give Credit to such a senseless thing When throughout a County in England (b) Dr. J. White in his Preface to The way to the true Church the Vulgar Papists were unable to render an account of their Faith or to understand the Points of the Catechism and utter'd their Creed in a Gibberish ridiculous to others and unintelligible by themselves Then the Priests fail'd in teaching the People or the People in teachableness But perhaps it has been otherwise since and was then in those Countries where the Publick and Authoriz'd Profession of the Roman Religion gave their Clergy more freedom of Access to and of Conversation with the Laiety Yet there 's an Opinion of the Romanists which will not much forward the diligent instructing of the Laiety in the Religion of Forefathers viz. That (a) The Author of Charity mistaken c. In Dr. Potter 's Answer to it pag. 183. 200 201. it suffices the Vulgar to believe implicitely what the Church teaches And that by virtue of such an implicite Faith a Cardinal Bellarmine and a Catholick Collier are of the same Belief This implicite Faith makes quick work and supersedes a distinct knowledge of Divine Truths and then what much need is there of a careful Teaching them They who speak not so broadly yet (a) Azor Instit Mor. Part 1. Lib. 8. Cap. 6. Sect. Tertiò quaeritur Et Sect. Sed mihi probabilius verius say it is the common Opinion of Divines that it is necessary to believe explicitely no more than the Apostles Creed or the fourteen Articles as they speak Nay some hold too that if this explicite Belief be only of the substance of the Articles confusedly and generally it is sufficient But by leave of these Authors such an explicite Belief of the Apostles Creed only much less a confus'd and general Belief cannot be sufficient howsoever sufficient it may be for other purposes to qualifie the Laiety for that great Purpose which in these Papers I am treating of But let the utmost be suppos'd viz. That the Clergy now do and formerly did discharge their Pastoral Duty as amply and faithfully as is requisite yet the Peoples usual immersion in secular business and distractions their oscitancy in Religious matters slowness of Understanding frailty of Memory in the
Dissimulation be incident to one to a former Age as well as to another a latter And all this would be much more true when an Error should possess the Church longer than the Arrian did Having now examin'd by Reason's Test the two necessary Qualifications of the Testifiers and Guardians of Christian Faith through Centuries of Years and having prov'd that the Dove can find no rest for the sole of her foot that they are too fluid and sinking for Divine Truth to fix on to conside in for safety in her passage through the many hazards of Time I go on to Experience and to consider what the actual performance of Oral Tradition has been how faithfully it has acquitted it self CHAP. IV. Experience against Oral Traditions being a safe and certain Conveyance of Divine Truths SECT I. IF Oral Tradition be a certain and infallible Conveyance of Divine Truths which is the ground of it's pretended Supreme Authority in Religion then there has been an Vniformity a constancy of the same Belief of the Church from the first through following Ages The Divine Scriptures indeed may retain their Integrity and Authority though They who own them as the only certain Conveyance and Rule of Faith swerve from Them and vary from one another because they do not attend to or misunderstand them as tho' some things in St. Paul's Epistles 2 Pet. 3.16 and other Scriptures were wrested by the unlearned and unstable to their own destruction who also differ'd from those who truly understood them yet notwithstanding those passages in St. Paul and those other Scriptures remain'd still Canonical But Oral Tradition does so intimately and necessarily include in it a successive Harmony of Forefathers and Posterities Belief it being a continued Testification of the one to the other that if this Co-herence fails if after Ages Belief contrariate that of the Primitive Age if one Church's Belief opposes that of another contemporaneous with it or perhaps agrees not well with it self at the same time or else with what it was in times precedent then the Conveyance breaks and so Oral Tradition forfeits its claim to Infallibility and consequently its arrogated Authority Let us then observe what the harmony and agreement of the Church's Belief has been through the several Ages of the World from the first Delivery of the Truths believed SECT II. When God made Man he endow'd him with such a rectitude of Nature as might enable him to glorifie his great Maker and to attain to his own Happiness And when Man had by eating of a forbidden Fruit contracted a general Ataxie of Soul and particularly a great dimness of Understanding God was pleased to relieve him and to repair the decays of his Knowledge of what concern'd him for Spiritual and Eternal purposes Especially doubtless God instructed him so far as he wanted supernatural Information about his Nature and Unity and how he would be Worshipped And questionless the first Father of Mankind and the succeeding Patriarchs did diligently teach their Children what they themselves had received from God And their exceeding long Lives gave them a peculiar opportunity to Catechise their Posterities through several Generations and to recover them upon any revolt from primitive belief or practice and the extraordinary length of their lives was also equivalent to a greater number of Traditioners Adam after the birth of Seth liv'd 800 years with his Children and Childrens Children and above 200 of those 800 years with Methusalah whose death was but a very little before the period of the old World Methusalah was Noahs Contemporary very near 600 years Noah that Preacher of Righteousness surviv'd with his descendents 350 Years after the Flood And before their dispersion and Plantation in remote places They especially the Heads of the Colonies had been educated and influenced by Noah that just Man and whom Gods familiarity with him and special care over him ought to have rendered most venerable and Them very dutifully sequacious of Him So likewise the two first Traditioners were incomparably considerable Adam and Eve were the greatest Miracles that ever were They could assure the World that they had a Being when as yet there was none of their own Kind besides them That they had near converse with the God that made them the Man of the Dust the Woman of a Rib of the Man They could truly relate to their Children many strange things of the World its State before and presently upon Sin And 't is likely there was such an Impress of Majesty upon the First Father of Mankind and a Prophet as Josephus calls him as might and doubtless did much awe his Children into an obsequious Regard to what he told them Then too in the days of Noah the drowning of the World in stupendious Waters and the Confusion of Tongues at the building of Babel were so rare and astonishing Wonders 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Jos Antiq. Jud. Lib. 1. Cap. 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Joseph Ibid. as the world never since saw and the memory of them so continued and spread though the following Ages that the Flood and the a Ark were mentioned by all Barbarian Historians and that b confusion at Babel was spoke of by a certain Sibyl and by (c) Hago Grotius ex Eusebio in Annotatis ad Lib. de Veritate Religi Christ pag. 244. Abydenus One would think that here was Defence enough of Tradition from miscarriage yet notwithstanding all this as the general Practice of Mankind was so vile All Flesh had so corrupted his way upon Earth which is all the account that Scripture egives that God was provok'd to wash the Earth clean in a Deluge so not long after the Flood there was a great defection in Practice and Opinion also from what had been deliver'd from Pious Fathers concerning God and the true Worship of Him those Fathers who were very qualified Testifiers and who reported to their Children such Divine Wonders as both might answer for the want of a greater Number of lesser Miracles and likewise make the Children to dread to reject what was delivered from God by Them Yet for all this I say corrupt Notions of God and of his Worship crept in Polytheism and Idolatry entred the World Even (d) Josh 24.2 Terah who lived with Noah 127 years and other Fathers of the Holy Abraham served other Gods And how widely Polytheism Idolatry and Superstition afterwards spread in the World and what a long possession they kept of it is notorious Thus the world apostatiz'd and past a Recovery by Oral Tradition which rather confirm'd it in it's Apostacy for thus Symmachus pleads for Heathenisme (e) Suus cuique mos suus cuique ritus est Jam si longa aetas â—â—thoritatem religionibus faciat servanda est tot Seculis fides et sequendi sunt nobis Parentes qui faeliciter sequuti sunt suos Symmachi V. C. Relatio ad Valent. Theodos Arcad. Augustos pro veteri
Authority of the Church is formally in the Prelates and therefore that the Church cannot err in defining matters of Faith and that the Bishops cannot Err are the same Thing From what has been quoted it seems that Dr. Cressy and whosoever else may be on his side are considerably oppos'd by others Indeed the Infallibility of the Roman Church and the great usefulness of it to them is better understood by them than to be parted with Upon a survey of the forementioned Dissentions among Romanists themselves the clear inference is that either Tradition is full and plain enough in the things disagreed about and if so then the Romanists themselves do not believe Tradition rest not in what their Fathers taught them and so transgress their own Rule of Faith or Tradition comes down so divided that it cannot unite them shines so dimly that they cannot see their way by it as (c) In the points of immaculate Conception and the Controversies between the Jesuits and the Dominicans c. Exomolog Ch. 82. Dr. Cressy says some learned Catholiques are of Opinion and so wander each Party in a Path by it self And this evinces Traditions impotency want of a sufficient plainness and certainty But here is a retreat to which our Adversaries must be followed There is a (a) Enchirid of Faith p. 17. 113. Some what to this purpose likewise Cressy speaks Exom Ch. 28. distinction made between the Faith and the Doctrine of the Church between Points which are de fide absolutè and such as are de fide sub Opinione Points of Faith strictly so call'd the denial of which would amount to Heresie and Points of Opinion rather than of Faith and Theological speculations only Now it will be said by our Adversaries that the Subject of their Home-differences are not of the former but of the latter kind matters of meer Opinion and therefore that their differences do not disparage Traditions care and sufficiency that being maintain'd to be a Rule of Faith only But to make such an Evasion useless a strict and close dispute about Points of Faith which are such and which not is with the more difficulty manageable betwixt our Adversaries and us because we differ about the Rule of Faith Accordingly they account of a Point as a (a) Enchirid of Faith p. 113. and to the like purpose Cresly Ibid Point of Faith or of meer Opinion as it is attested to or not attested to by a sufficient Tradition which they assert to be the rule of Faith but this is the thing in question between us Therefore as things stand the way will be to review the aforenamed Tenents controverted among the Romanists and to see what their tendency and importance is in Religion in the Judgment of any sober and unbïassed Christian as also what our Adversaries own Sentiments are concerning them Then 1. The freedom of the will in corrupted Nature the assistance of Divine Grace Predestination to an Eternal State the extent of the Redemption by the Death of Christ perseverance in Grace look like material concerns in Religion and the respective statings of the Questions arising on these Subjects are judg'd momentous by the controverting Parties (b) Les Provincia les Or the c. p. 45. 41. The Jansenists complain of sharp usage from the Molinists that a Proposition of theirs viz. That the Fathers shew us a just Man in the Person of St. Peter to whom the grace without which a Man cannot do any thing was wanting was censur'd by their Antagonists to be temerarious impious blasphemous worthy to be Anathematiz'd and Heretical and that their Persons have been traduc'd and defam'd in Books and Pulpits openly and publickly accus'd as Hereticks The Controversies between the Remonstrants and Contra-Remonstrants some of the principal also between the Lutherans and the Calvinists are much of the same kind with them contended about between the Jesuits and Dominicans the Jansenists and Molinists and yet sure the Romanists will have them to be more than matters of meer Opinion and Theological speculations only in us Protestants because they take occasion from these and some other differences of no higher a Complexion at the least can't be accus'd to be such by a Romanist to upbraid us with the (a) Câ—arity mistaken apuâ—â— Pâ—tter want of Charity 〈◊〉 charged c. p. 58. darkness and confusion of our Condition and that our bitter Contentions and Speeches declare us to be of different Churches and Religions But if these differences in Judgment and Heats be of so high a nature and of so desperate effects in us why not so in them also For suppose that some Protestants passions are more warm in these disputes yet there are also many moderate Men on both sides and to make them of different Religions there must be a contrariety of Judgments and even in matters of Faith and if these be Points of Faith in Protestants what just reason can be given why they should not be such in Romanists likewise 2ly (a) Les Previn 〈◊〉 Letâ—e◠〈◊〉 p. 92. The Doctrine of probable Opinions and That an Opinion is then call'd probable when it is grounded upon some reasons of consideration whence it sometimes comes to pass that the Opinion of one grave Doctor may render an Opinion probable Much of the Casâ—â—stical Divinity of the Jesuits their (b) Ibid. Lâ—tter 9. 186 c. easie Devotions their knack of (c) Ibid. Let. 7. p. 131 132 c. directing the Intention their Doctrine of (d) Ibid. Let. 9. p. 202 203 c. mental Reservation and of the sufficiency of (e) Ibid. Let. 10. p. 231 c. Attrition their Salvo's for (a) Ibid Let. 6. p. 115 and Let. 13. p. 285 286 c. Simony (b) Ibid. Let. 7. p. 134 c. Revenge and (c) Ibid. Let. 8. p. 171 c. Stealing with several Practiques of the like stamp certainly will be doom'd by any who are seriously Christians to be destructive of that fixedness and soundness in the Faith which is opposite to the levity of Children toss'd to and fro and carried about with every wind of Doctrine c. Eph. 4.14 and of the Doctrine which is according to godliness 1. Tim. 6.3 3ly If Tenents may be thought to be de fide points of Faith by their influence on other Credenda and Agenda things to be believed and done and on the Peace of the Christian World then certainly those Tenents which relate to the Pope and were even now touch'd on must be Points of Faith and that of the first Classis For whosoever can see through things will judge that they are of vast inference that on the determination of them must depend the direction of the Pope in the exercise of his Power and of Christians in what and how far to obey him and his Commands as to belief and practice Prince's Crowns and their Subject's Loyalty are deeply concern'd in them and consequently the
in all Writings in the Margent Points of Faith in the Oral Tradition of them must have as pass'd from one Country to another so been clothed in variety of Languages the divers Accents in the pronuntiation of the words passing thro' multitudes of mouths the divers turnings of the Speakers Head or Body this way or that way the allusion to some precedent discourse or the like may change the Sense of words when spoken by one from what they were when spoken by another as well as make them different in writing from what they were in speaking and Equivocation too is incident to words spoken as well as written So that if for these reasons the Conveyance of the Faith antiently spoken or preach'd by Scripture will be uncertain as is said for the same reasons if they are truly reasons the sense and meaning of the Divine Planters of the Faith will as uncertainly descend to us by an Oral Tradition All this while I have mentioned only casualties and the more innocent infirmities as shortness in understanding inheedfulness in Memory incident to Testifiers on the score of which there may be a misrepresentation of things tho' there be no Conspiracy to deceive But then if the question be concerning the Soberness and Integrity of all the Testifiers what assurance can be given of them There is a proneness in Men not alone out of inadvertency and precipitancy but also out of capriciousness and ambition to be an Author to substract to to add to to alter Stories which meeting with Credulity in others as it often happens the Stories and their Errata pass currant and uncorrected Besides if there be not such a disinteressedness of the Position or thing testified which frequently falls out then the Honesty and Fairness of the Testifiers in their Relation may be the more questionable and others may be the more suspending in their Belief I suppose what I have said is enough to shew the descent of Testifications from Age to Age to be liable to great failures especially if it be applied to Religion where the Articles of Faith the Sacred Practices and Senses of Scripture which concern all these are so many and withal there are so many and so tempting Diversions of Men as has been above proved But here it is replyed that Religion is rather a Remedy of the failures attending on the descent of Testimonies And to prove a far greater steadiness of Oral Tradition in Religion's Affairs than in any other there are (a) Sure Footing p. 224 225 226 227 228. alleg'd the great Divine Author of Religion the superlative Interest of Mankind in it the publick miraculous Confirmation of it the Preaching and Reception of it in all even the remotest parts of the World the entertainment of it among the first Christians when they were at Age to judge of the Miracles and Motives to Christian Religion and among the after Christians when they were yet scarce able to speak much less to judge and taught by Nature to believe their Parents And from hence are inferr'd an incomparable recommendableness in Religion and an Obligation to believe and to practise it and likewise a most forcible Obligation on Children to believe Parents attesting to it Answ I acknowledge that to be true which is alleg'd in the just commendation of Religion and that it does deserve and bind to a zeal diligence and sincerity in the Treatment of it far above what Men bestow on any worldly thing whatsoever I question not also but that the incomparable remarkableness of Religion did fix deep and indeleble Impressions on the Christians of the first Age and on all afterwards who have known how to value love and tender it answerably to its true worth But this is that at which I stop i. e. Whether Christians have in all Ages so cherish'd the even now named virtues for Religion as to send it down to us without any disguises and in its genuine and first Integrity and this by virtue of an Oral Tradition and of Fathers long continued testifying to their immediate Descendents whether they have not been too cold and careless for it or too whether their zeal for want of a governing Prudence has not sometimes transported them from one Error to an opposite one Whether they have been so single and upright in the Maintenance of the Truths of Religion as the Simplicity of it does require especially may we doubt of this Candor and Ingenuity in those who hold the Doctrine of Equivocation I think that he who has considered the Genius of Mankind will see it probable enough that Christians may have given worldly Interests and corrupt Passions too great a Preference in their dealing with Religion the particular Truths and Practices of it And that were it not for some Leading Men Persons of Parts and Spirit who sometimes sway the Age in which they live and yet these too may be overborn by a dissenting Multitude the most would be too prone to turn almost with every wind that should blow and to steer their Course thither whence they might look for the greatest Temporal ease and advantage And this Men might do and yet (a) Sure Footing p. 230. not as a pack of impudent Knaves that conspir'd to abuse their Posterity purposely to damn them For Men may act contrarily to their Duty and to the wrong of themselves and of theirs eventually nay too often do so and yet not out of a desperate and form'd purpose to destroy either From what has been discours'd it follows that the incomparable recommendableness of Religion and its obligingness to be believed do not conclude a continued and necessary obligation upon Children to believe their Parents through all Ages And yet suppose that there were such an Obligation upon Children to believe their Fathers unless Children did believe such an obligation incumbent on them Oral Tradition would be still failable For then Children Posterity would take the liberty to judge for themselves and to vary from the Fathers as they should see reason for it Or if they should believe as Fathers did it would be casual Therefore to make all sure 't is (a) Sure Footing p. 215 216. own'd and undertaken to be proved That every Age in the Church and all Persons in it look'd upon themselves as obliged not to vary in any thing from the Doctrine and Practice of the precedent Age. Yet I cannot discern in all the following Pages of that Author any proof of this but only an attempt to prove an Obligation on those in every Age to believe those of the precedent Age. But as this Obligation has been sufficiently disprov'd so yet if it were true could it infer that they in every Age look'd upon thought themselves obliged to believe those of the Ages foregoing for 't is notorious that Men do not always think themselves oblig'd to believe and to do that which yet they are really obliged to believe and to do But I can't discover any Indication
of such a Belief of Posterity concerning such an Obligation 'T is well known that antiently and in several Ages of the Church scarce a new Opinion could start up but it found Abettors 'T is strange if there were indeed such a persuasion as is pretended fix'd in the hearts of Christians that so often they should have left the Road and turn'd into an unbeaten Path in former Ages To come neerer to our own Times The Relinquishers of the Roman Tenents and Communion the Deserters as our Adversaries call them of Tradition were like the Croud in St. John's Vision a great Multitude which no man can number of many Nations and Kindreds People and Tongues People divided by diversity of Climates and vast spaces of Earth and Seas of various Complexions of Body and Dispositions of Soul of different Education manner of Life and Civil Interests This being undeniably true how utterly improbable is it that so many Myriads differenced by so many considerable Circumstances should so unanimously agree in a departure from the Roman Church i. e. in the Style of our Adversaries in a defection from Tradition if there had really been such a common Charm and great Principle regnant among them and uniting them in an Obsequious adherence to their Fathers Faith and in an opposition to any alteration of their Belief Especially it is yet the more improbable if it be remembred that many of these adventur'd on a change through the sharpest Persecutions And the Successors of those first Reformers have maintain'd the Secession toward two Centuries of years and are so well fatisfied in it that they are generally averse from a return to the Roman Communion unto which nothing but force is likely to reduce them if even That can do it By this it appears how highly improbable that Position is viz. That it is impossible that Men should not think themselves obliged to believe (a) Sure Footing p. 216. and to do as their Predecessors did Or if a very great improbability be suppos'd and that the Secessors from Rome had such a Belief of a Tye upon them unto the Faith and Practice of Ancestors then for certain they acted contrarily to that Belief But howsoever Act they did and Counter to the Age then and some Ages before And even this will weaken Oral Tradition's indefectibility For what hapned in this alteration may have hapned in the Ages before Tho' Children suppose did conceive an Obligation upon them to the same Faith with that of their Fathers and because it was their Fathers yet if they might move contrarily to them notwithstanding such a believed engagement there might be a Rupture in Tradition as surely as if they had had no sense of such Obligation So that I do not see if it should be granted that there had been and were still in all Generations such a persuasion of Posterities Obligation to believe and to practice just as Forefathers did how such a Concession would quite do Oral Tradition's business For tho' it may be well argued negatively if Posterity did not conceive themselves oblig'd to believe and to do as their Fathers did there can be no certainty of Oral Tradition yet it does not necessarily follow on the other side and affirmatively if successive Generations do believe themselves engag'd to believe and to practise just as the foregoing did therefore it will be sure that they will so believe and practise The reason is because Men do not always nay too seldom what they know it is their Duty to do And tho' they who first departed from Tradition might proceed against conviction of their Obligation to the contrary yet their Successors not discerning the manner of the first departure might continue it as the 200 Men followed Absalom in their simplicity till continuance grew into a Prescription and gain'd the Port of Tradition But notwithstanding that the so numerous Relinquishers of Rome render it very improbable that there was or is a belief generally rooted in the minds of Men that they are bound to believe and to do conformably to Fathers yet it may be perhaps said to counterballance this that they who keep still constant to Rome and to Tradition are remarkably numerous And it is confess'd they are too many But it may rationally be questioned whether all or the greatest part of them do stay in that Communion out of a fix'd belief that they are bound to believe as their Fathers did I am sure their Being of that Church does not evince such a Belief in them because there are divers other Causes which may detain them on that side besides such a persuasion As Ignorance Education Prepossession and Wontedness to it variety of great Preferments and Grandure secular Pomp and Splendor the profitableness and pleasingness of some Doctrines fear from the Princes who are Popish and of Civil Penalties dread of Ecclesiastical Censures and of the Inquisition Were they of the Roman Party more free the Rod not so held over them were Punishments not so severely threatned and executed on Revolters we should better understand how devoted submitters they were to Oral Tradition and how much they were convinced of it as a necessary Duty not to let their Faith alter from that of Ancestors The summ of this Section is this 1. That it has not been proved that there is an Obligation on Posterity to believe Forefathers nay the contrary has been proved 2ly That if there were such an Obligation yet it is not necessary that Posterity should conceive themselves to be under such an Obligation 3ly That if they did conceive themselves to be so obliged yet it does not necessarily follow that they would move according to their Sense of such an Obligation Therefore on this third Head there is not sufficient security given for Oral Tradition's infallibility SECT IV. 4ly The Author of the Answer to the Lord Falkland's Discourse of the Infallibility of the Church of Rome says P. 10 11 12. That a deeper root which greatly strengthens and reduces into action the efficacity of Tradition is that Christian Doctrine is not a speculative knowledge but it is an Art of living a practical Doctrine The consequence of which is that it is not possible that any material Point of Christian Faith can be changed as it were by obreption whilest Men are on sleep but it must needs raise a great scandal and tumult in the Christian Common-weal We remember in a manner as yet how Change came into Germany France Scotland and our own Country Let those be a signe to us what we may think can be the creeping in of false Doctrine specially that there is no point of Doctrine contrary to the Catholick Church rooted in any Christian Nation that the Ecclesiastical History does not mention the times and combats by which it entred and tore the Church in pieces Here 's another Argument for the great Efficacy of Tradition in that it prevents Obreptions so that the Church can't be assaulted by
been said it is more than likely that there may have been Obreptions points of Faith and Religious Practice may have been materially changed and yet no great Tumult have been rais'd in the Christian Common-weal no Schisme because perhaps the Innovations rush'd not in the whole at once but convey'd themselves into the Church in a Climax insinuated themselves by sly and gradual Transitions therefore with the less if any observations especially might this surprize be undiscern'd in blind and irreligious Ages 2. Secondly as for notice of the changes of Opinions and Practices from Church-Histories So great is the use of Ecclesiastical Histories that we may with reason wish we could rather boast of a plenty than complain of their scarcity which yet Learned Men do especially considering the great extent of the Christian Church for Time and Place which necessarily afforded as huge a variety of Events and Revolutions (a) Is Casaub in Proleg ad Exercitat For above 200 years after the Apostles till Eusebius Pamphilus there was none who did more than begin to designe some History of the Church rather than seriously set about it For a considerable while after the six hundreth year that (b) Idem Ibid. Learned Man quoted in the Margent doubts whether to call those Ages 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Times of Portentiloquie or of Ignorance But there are those who say as much or more and were Sons of the Church of Rome The great (c) Nulla res ita hactenus negligi vis est ac rerum Ecclesiasticarum gestarum vera certa exactâ diligentiâ perquisita Narratio Baron in Praefatione ad Annal. Tom. prim Annalist confesses That nothing seem'd to have been so much neglected as a true and certain and exact History of Ecclesiastical Affairs And before Him it was acknowleg'd by (d) Maximum saepenumero dolorem cepi dum ipse mecum reputo quà m diligenter Acta verò Apostolorum Martyrum deinque Divorum nostrae Religionis ipsius sive crescentis Ecclesiae sive jam adultae opâ—rta maximix tenebris ferè ignorari Fuere qui magna pietatis loco ducerent mendacia pro religione confingere Lib. 5. de Trad. Discipl .. Ludovicus Vives That the Acts of the Apostles of the Martyrs and of the Saints and the Concerns of the Church both growing up and grown were unknown being conceal'd under very great darkness In this penury of Ecclesiastical History how much of the Changes in the Church with an abundance of other very memorable accidents must have perished In those Histories which were Written and are still extant we can expect no more than the most remarkable Occurrents in the respective Ages of which the Authors wrote if all those That a Change in the Church should be remarkable it was requisite that it should raise a Storm cause a Publick disquiet and Breach of Communion which yet might not have hapned tho' there were an Alteration in material Points as has been shewn above and therefore Church-Histories if we had more of them to speak might be silent of it And yet notwithstanding Protestants can say more viz. That Ecclesiastical Writings are not so wholly unintelligencing but that they do report when and how several Points of the Romanists controverted between them and us got into the Church how and by whom they were observ'd and resisted in the several Ages of the Church For which among others (a) Way to the true Ch. p. 195 196 c. Dr. J. White may be seen But I am not engag'd necessarily to insist on this having said what is sufficient before SECT V. Scriptures Councils and Fathers were (b) Sure Footing p. 126 c. once drawn into the Field to engage in the defence of Oral Tradition but upon after thoughts a Retreat is sounded to Two of them For the Author of Sure Footing says That he Discourses from his Scriptural Allegations but (c) Letter of thanks p. 106. Topically and that in Citation of them he proceeds on such Maximes as are ut'd in Word-skirmishes on which account he believes that those Texts he uses sound more favourably for him than for us But in Word-skirmishes i. e. Appearances ministred from Words which may afford to a pleasant Sophister an opportunity of making passages seem to favour his Hypothesis when really they do not so I have no inclination to deal and I conceive such a wordy velitation to be below the Gravity of the Cause depending between us and our Adversaries Next the Author disclaims his Quotations of (a) Ibid. p. 105. Councils to be intended against Protestants if so then I am not obliged to take notice of them As for the Fathers I know all Protestants do declare that they do highly value the Fathers to such a degree as can be justly demanded from them and as the Fathers themselves were they now living would require from them And concerning their Testimonies both of Holy Scripture and of Tradition something shall be said in the Second Part and there on a particular occasion I have now dispatch'd the First Part of my Undertaking and have evinc'd from the Nature of Oral Tradition from Experience or Event and also by Answer to the Defenses brought for it That it is a very unsafe and insufficient Conveyance of Divine Truths down from their Original Delivery unto us And here I might rest thinking that I had compleated my work if I might be allow'd to discourse after the manner of the * P. 52. Author of Sure Footing with the change only of a few words and to say There being only two grounds or Rules of Faith own'd namely delivery of it down by Writing and by Words and Practices which we call Oral and Practical Tradition 't is left unavoidably out of the impossibility that Oral and Practical Tradition should be infallible as a Rule that Sacred Scriptures must be such and therefore that they are the surest Conveyance of faith But I shall not so crudely conclude my enquiry but shall in a Second Part prove Holy Scriptures to be the most safe immediate Conservatory and Conveyance of Divine Truths down from their first Delivery unto all after Ages Only having been large in the First Part I suppose I may be the briefer in the Second PART II. Sacred Scriptures are the safest Conservatory and Conveyance of Divine Truths down from their Original Delivery through succeeding Ages CHAP. I. SECT I. IF we may collect the Judgment of Mankind from their Practice we may believe that in the Conveyance of Matters of Moment to Posterity they judge the Precedence due to Writings about Oral Tradition because they so commonly commit things of that nature to Books tho' they know the Books themselves must be trusted with Tradition and Providence How much more should this Practice take place in Religion which concerns Men as highly as their Blessedness does And besides common Practice there 's great reason why the
else he betrayed the Cause by appealing to a Medium which could not evince it For either the Nicene Council decreed the Consubstantiality of the Son with the Father by Scripture without Tradition and then we have above three hundred venerable Fathers on our side or if they defin'd it in the strength of Tradition without Scripture or by Tradition sensing Scripture then St. August parting with the Council of Nice proceeding upon Tradition only or upon Tradition sensing Scripture left himself nothing or but the Letter of Scripture which according to our Adversaries wants all the properties of a Rule of Faith Sure Footing p. 29 to manage his Cause with By these Testimonies it is plain it cannot be that the Fathers should express themselves (a) Tho' some Fathers speak highly of Scripture as that it contains all Faith c. It is first to be mark'd whether they speak of Scripture sens'd or as yet to be sens'd and if the latter by whom c. Sure Footing p. 140. so highly of Scripture only so far as help'd and sens'd by Tradidition because as to the Being a Rule of Faith the Fathers separate Tradition from Scripture and set Scripture by it self Much more it is far from being (a) 'T is impossible they i. e. the Fathers should bâ—ld Scripture thus interpretable i. e. by other means thâ—n by Tradition the Rulâ— of Faith it being notorious that mâ—st Hereticks against whom they writ held it theirs And so had they held Scripture thus interpreted the Rule of Faith They could not have hâ—ld the Hereticks since they adbered stifly to that Root or Rule of Faith however they might err in many particular Tenents Ibid. p. 141. impossible that the Fathers should hold Scripture not interpreted by Tradition to be the Rule of Faith which yet is affirm'd And the Reason given is as weak as the Affirmation is untrue For if the Scripture not interpreted by Tradition could not be held to be the Rule of Faith because Hereticks adhering stifly to it as the Rule or Root of Faith could not be held as Hereticks then nor could Tradition be held to be the Rule of Faith because Hereticks as the (b) See Irenaeus quoted a little after Gnosticks and others sticking to Tradition as their Rule could not be held as Hereticks There 's a manifest parity of these Discourses and the latter is as concluding as the former But it is to accumulate injuries upon Scripture because the mistakes and perversness of Men abuse it by false glosses and compell'd deductions therefore to judge it fit it should forfeit its Authority Our blessed Lord who so condemn'd the Jewish Traditions held the Scripture of the Old Testament to be the Jew's Rule of Faith and the Sadduces who denied the Resurrection sure were held by him to be Hereticks and yet they disclam'd Tradition and adher'd stifly to Scripture only as the Root or Rule of Faith Certainly it is the impress and appointment from God which constitute a Rule of Faith make it to be such and Men prove Hereticks when they wilfully wrong pervert and wrest it but 't is wonderful that Hereticks acknowledging it to be the Rule of Faith i. e. paying to it what is due to it or a pretence that it favours their Errors which is a slander of it should unmake it a Rule of Faith render it impossible to be held to be such 2ly In enquiry about the second thing propos'd it must be consider'd that the word Tradition has more acceptions than one And that Tradition may be used to different Persons at different times in a divers manner and to several ends 1. Tradition is taken sometimes both in Scripture and Ecclesiastical Writers not for Oral delivery of Opinions and Practices to Posterity but for what is deliver'd by Writing and even in the Sacred Scriptures The Jew's Law and Rites are said to be such (a) Act. 6.14 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which Moses Tradition'd and yet they were a part of the Old Testament St. Paul (b) 1 Cor. 15.3 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 delivered to the Christians which he had also received that Christ dyed for our Sins which was but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according to the Scriptures (c) De Spiritu Sto. St. Basil says that our Baptisme in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost is according to the very Tradition of our Lord and yet this is (a) Matth. 28.19 written with St. (b) Si ergo aut in Evangelio praecipitur aut in Apostelorum Epistolis aut Actibus continetur observetur etiam haec sancta Traditio In Ep. ad Pompeium Cyprian that is an holy Tradition which is either commanded in the Gospel or is contained in the Epistles and Acts of the Apostles 2ly It is observed that some of the Fathers had to do with such Hereticks as denied the Scriptures some part of them at the least and set up other writings in stead of them In dealing with such those Fathers were forc'd to have recourse to Tradition that so they might dispute with their Advesaries on such a Principle as they would allow and this in way of condescention 'T was thus with (c) Cum enim ex Scripturis arguuntur in accusationem convertuntur ipsarum Scripturarum quasi non rectà habeant neque sint ex autoritate quia variè sint dictae quia non possit ex his inveniri veritas ab his qui nesciant Traditioneâ— Non enim per literas traditam illam sed per vivam vocem ob quam causam c. Adversus baereses Lib. 3. Cap. 2. Irenaeus in his Contest with the Gnosticks Who says he when they are argued against out of the Scriptures accuse the very Scriptures themselves as if they were not right nor were of Authority sufficient and because their Sense is various and uncertain and because the Truth cannot be found in them by those who are ignorant of Tradition This made Irenaeus in opposition to their fictitious Tradition and pretended living Voice express himself the more respectfully of such Tradition as had brought down the Orthodox Doctrine from the Apostles in the several Churches Not that he preferr'd Tradition to Scripture for what his Judgment was of Scripture we have seen before and 't is the observation of (a) In Epist nuncupatoriâ Irenaeo praefixâ Erasmus that he fights against the Hereticks solis scripturarum praesidiis by the sole aid of Scriptures i. e. Scriptures were his chief Weapons and that if he took up Tradition 't was but occasionally upon the froward impudence of his Adversaries 3. We must distinguish of Times The Gospel was Preached before it was Written It was written too one part after another And when the whole was written the Copies could not presently be many and dispersed to all Christians especially the more new and remoto Converts Nay and had the Gospel never been written then the Church
the least as to priviledge Oral Tradition to be the Rule of Faith For 1. Were their writings the Conservatories of Tradition written by persons mov'd by the Holy Ghost or not If not and I suppose our adversaries will not affirm they were then these writings have a great disadvantage of the Holy Scriptures which we profess to be the Canon of our Faith as great a disadvantage as must be between Books written by them who could not err and those written by them who might err from whence it would follow that what is contain'd in the one must be true that the Contents of the other may be true yet too they may be false there may be that reported in them as deliver'd by Christ and his Apostles which yet was not delivered by them But 2. Were there Ecclesiastical Monuments of unquestionable credit and which did from Christ and his Apostles through each age exacty and fully declare to us the consentient Doctrines and Practices of the universal Church it would be very material and we should much rejoice in it but the case is otherwise For some while there were very few if any writings save the Holy Scripture which come to our hands Justin Martyr is said to be the first Father About 150 years after Christ whose works have survived to this day There are some Books which pretend to an early date which yet are judg'd to be supposititious some of them judged to be so by the Romanists themselves others proved to be such by the (a) Cook in censu â quorundum Scriptorum D. James's Bastardie of false Fathers Daille Protestants For the first 300 years as there was no compleat Ecclesiastical History so the Fathers now extant were but few and their Works too being calculated for the times in which they lived reach not the controversies which for many years past and at this day exercise and trouble Christendom This paucity of the Records of the first ages (a) Id autem esse tempus quo quatuor prima Concilia Oecumenica includantur a Constantino Imp. ad Marcianum Atque hoc vel propterea aequissimum esse quia primorum seculorum paucissima extant monumenta illius vero temporis quo Ecclesia praecipuè florebat longe plurima ut facile ex ejus aetatis Patribus eorum scriptis fides ac disciplina veteris Catholicoe possit agnosci Ita Perron Sequitur Responsio Regis Hoc postulatum parùm illis aequum videbitur c. Apud Is Casaubonum in Responsione ad Cardinalis Perronii Epistolam pag. 38 39 40 41 42. Card. Perron acknowledges and does imply their insufficiency for setling Catholick Faith when as he would have recourse made for this purpose unto the 4th and 5th Centuries because then there were most writers Tho against this the learned Is Casaubon excepts and justly forasmuch as it must be presum'd that the stream of Tradition ran purest nearest to its Fountain The Fathers after the first 300 years did often mix their own private sentiments with the Doctrines of the Church Nor do the Fathers express themselves so as that we may clearly distinguish when they writ as Doctors and when as Witnesses when they deliver their own private Sense and when the Sense of the Church and if of the Church whether it be of the Church universal or of some particular Church some who have diligently perus'd their Writings judge it not easy to find any such constant 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is confess'd by (a) Rushworth Dial 3d. Sect. 13. a Romanist that the Fathers speak sometimes as Witnesses of what the Church held in their days and sometimes as Doctors and so it is often hard to distinguish how they deliver their Opinions because sometimes they press Scripture or Reason as Doctors and sometimes to confirm a known Truth So that he who seeks Tradition in the Fathers and to convince it by their Testimony takes an hard task upon him if he go rigorously to work and have a cunning Critick to his Adversary So then Tradition must in a good measure be at a loss for succour from the Fathers Writings I conclude then that Books Writings have not given such advantages to Oral Tradition as to render it the safest and most certain Conveyance of Divine Truths but this Dignity and Trust is due to Holy Scriptures only which having been at the first penn'd by Persons assisted by the Divine infallible Spirit are stamp'd with an Authority transcendent to all humane Authority Oral or Written which have been witness'd to by the concurrent Testimony of the Church in each intermediate Age since the Primitive Times and which are at this day generally agreed upon as the true Word of God by Christians tho' in other things it may be some of their Heads may stand as oppositely as those of Sampson's Foxes SECT IV. There remains a Cavil or two rather than Objections which shall have a dispatch also 1. We are told that by desertion of Oral Tradition and adherence to Scripture we do cast our selves upon a remediless ignorance even of Scripture (a) Sure Footing P. 117. Tradition establish'd the Church is provided of a certain and infallible Rule to interpret Scripture's Letter by so as to arrive certainly at Christ's Sense c. And e contrà (b) Ibid. p. 98. without Tradition both Letter and Sense of Scripture is uncertain and subject to dispute Again (c) Ibid. p. 38. As for the certainty of the Scriptures signisicancy nothing is more evident than that this is quite lost to all in the uncertainty of the Letter 2ly It is suggested that the course we take is an Enemy to the Churches Peace (d) Ibid. p. 40. The many Sects into which our miserable Country is distracted issue from this Principle viz. The making Scriptures Letter the Rule of our Faith By these passages it is evident that this Author will have it that Protestants have nothing but the Letter of Scriptures dead Characters to live upon and that upon this he charges their utter uncertainty in the interpretation of Scriptures and their distractions Answ But Protestants when they affirm That Scripture is the safest and most certain Conveyance of Divine Truths and that consequently it is the only Rule of Faith do mean Scriptures Letter and Sense both or the Sense notified by the Words and Letter And therefore the Author might have spar'd his Proof of this conclusion i. e. That Scriptures Letter wants all the properties belonging to a Rule of Faith It was needless I say to prove this to Protestants Well but let Protestants mean and affirm what they will have only the Letter of Scripture and not the Sense of it because they admit not of Oral Tradition to Sense it Scripture it seems is such a Riddle that there is no understanding it except we plough with their Heifer and likewise without Tradition's caement we shall always be a pieces and at variance amongst our selves But 1.